


debts

by Cards_Slash



Series: Sass Verse [5]
Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Alcohol, Dubious Consent, M/M, Poor Life Choices, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-16 16:45:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7275961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cards_Slash/pseuds/Cards_Slash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>an unasked for side story to Sass-Badger Versus the Son of No One.  </p>
<p>Federico and Edward make terrible choices, especially when drunk and left alone together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	debts

**Author's Note:**

> this was actually written in a different but complete form long before Sass was finished. Then I decided that the version I had already written didn't correctly convey the extreme levels of angst and dubious consent that this relationship entailed in its beginning. These two morons have a lot of things to work out and that happens through violence and extremely poor choices and dubious sexual situations. You have been warned.

Ezio found him in the downstairs library, laying in a high-back chair with a book of poetry (that he wasn’t even reading) open in his lap. At seventeen the idiot was pulled out of proportion, his shoulders looked as if they should collapse his body with the sheer weight of them. He moved gracelessly, barreling his way through any obstacles and collapsing into any seat he chose to claim as his own. Ezio dropped into a seat opposite him and said, “ _Edward_ is here,” with the particular delight of borrowed distaste. “He didn’t look happy.”

There was no reason to think anyone that was dragged back from exile to attend the deathbed of their least favorite relative would be happy. Federico shrugged.

“I think he’s covered in tattoos, I heard Mrs. Finch talking to him in the kitchen—something about an anchor. Mother said he’s staying in the doghouse—are you listening to me?”

“What do you want?” Federico asked. He dragged himself away from the book of poetry he wasn’t even reading to look at Ezio. His quick-frown was a distasteful slash across his face, the only expression that could make his brother ugly. 

“I was telling you Edward is here.”

Federico rolled his eyes. “Yes, thank you. Anything else?”

There was nothing (nothing in all the world) that Ezio hated more than being dismissed. He got up out of the chair he’d been so happy to drop into and made to leave, pausing at a thin table where a stack of books had been left off their shelves. After a breath of consideration he picked one of them up and threw it backward at Federico. “You don’t have to be an asshole _all the time_.” 

Federico did not even give him the satisfaction of a response.

\--

In the morning, when it was Federico’s turn to sit next to Grandma Phyllis (and watch her die) he brought his book of poetry and sat in the lounge chair, listening to the gasp of the oxygen and the beep of the monitors like a cadence to read to. Phyllis didn’t wake up (much, anymore) but startled into full life now-and-again. 

He put in his two hours without an eventful moment and was relieved of his duty by Edward, looking awkward in a polo and dark pants, rubbing his broad palms down his thighs. His face and hands had gone dark with too much sun but his hair had bleached out blond. When he looked at Federico, he did not smile but acknowledge him with a half-nod. His voice was almost toneless (efficient, not interested) when he said, “what do I do?”

“You sit,” Federico said. He held out the book he’d brought for entertainment and Edward took it on instinct if not actual desire. Then Federico stepped past him and looked back to see Phyllis with both-eyes-open and her expression in a confusion of happiness and distaste. 

“You have gotten big,” she said to Edward.

“It’s amazing what six years does to you,” he said when he sat down. “I didn’t expect to be called back.”

Phyllis dragged her tongue across her lips. She did not smile but fix her stern expression on Edward as he sat in the seat at her side. There was no give, no forgiveness at all, in her voice when she said, “you earned what you got. You know it better than anyone.”

Federico didn’t say to listen to Edward’s objections or admissions but closed the door behind him when he left.

\--

“Ezio says you hate Edward, why do you hate Edward? Was Edward mean to you? What did Edward do?” Claudia ambushed him in the kitchen when Federico tried to sneak in after family breakfast was packed away. The family was a poor collection of egos; a great machine that was breaking down to misaligned gears and broken bits. When it was not William whining about his lot in life, it was Mother with her shrewd-face, correcting the misbehavior of little children, but Mrs. Finch (perpetually pink-eyed) leveled her hatred at William and lavished her love on Desmond with such obviousness that the tension between the adults in the room suffocated the poor bastards that were too young to abstain from forced-family-time. 

Altair was the only one that could get away from it. The royal baby rolled up the stairs and into his Grandmother’s room to lay on her bed and hold her hand while she lay slowly-slowly dying.   
“Aren’t you supposed to be playing with the other babies?” he asked. 

Claudia put her hands on her hips and stood directly between him and the fridge he was aiming for. When he tried to go around her, she raised her voice to say, “I am _not_ a baby, _Federico!_ ” The look on her face was smug and the satisfaction that lit up her eyes meant she was fully-aware that she had called down the wrath of the kitchen staff. No doubt they had been alerted to his Mother’s rule: nobody ate that did not eat with the family. If Claudia were Ezio Federico would have punched her. As it stood, she was a girl and girls were _soft_ (she was also a child) so he just sneered at her as he turned back the way he came. 

\--

Out in the garden, after dark, Federico was sitting on Grandpa’s bench in the roses, kicking his feet in the loose pebbles. He was smoking his (second or third) cigarette while he watched the stars winking into life in the darkness. The shuffle of footsteps made him turn his head. 

Edward came to a slow halt a few feet from the bench. He had a flashlight in his hand that was sallow-light, hardly bright enough to see by but it was enough to make Federico squint when it was pointed at him. “Your fucking Mother,” Edward said. The curious tone of his voice hadn’t changed much in the past six years. It was almost exactly the same as Federico remembered. The edge of his accent had gotten sharper (not duller), but it was otherwise precisely the same. “Has she been studying up to be the next Phyllis? The old bitch isn’t even dead yet, we don’t need another.”

Federico shrugged. He pulled the pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and held them out to Edward. It did not even take a full six seconds for Edward to take them, or for him to fall into place on the bench next to them. They weren’t skinny little boys anymore, but full grown men, uncomfortably in close proximity to each other. “What’d she do?” Federico asked. He passed over the lighter when Edward held out his hand for it. “Turn off the flashlight.”

Without that strained piss-yellow-light, the darkness was more encompassing. The isolation was a beautiful illusion. Edward tipped his head back, sagged his body into the bench and spread his legs so his thigh was snug against Federico’s as he all but moaned at the inhalation of smoke. The tip of his cigarette glowed a brilliant red-orange before it faded again. After a pause he said, “it seems my case has been transferred to her care. She felt the need to reiterate the ground rules of my continued exile.”

Yes, that sounded like her. Federico shrugged his shoulders and Edward dropped his left hand so it was against his thigh and the bump of his knuckles was a prominent point against Federico’s leg. “Welcome to my life,” he said. “Only I don’t get to whore my way around Caribbean with a bottle of rum and a fancy boat.”

“Ship,” Edward said. “Why can’t you?”

Then he laughed, throaty and bitter. The taste of the smoke on his tongue a perfect compliment to the gravel-tone when he said, “there’s no money for me in exile, Edward. I walk out now and I have nothing.”

That earned him a quick snort. Edward reached up in the dark to feel around his face to get at his hair and ruffled it up without affection. Then he hooked his hand around Federico’s neck and patted his shoulder. “Better a poor man than a prisoner—unless you want to end up like Grandpa.”

There was no worthwhile argument there. Federico leaned forward to get Edward’s warm-warm-arm off his shoulders and kicked the rocks under his feet. “You think you’re not a prisoner?”

Edward didn’t answer that but took a moment to smoke his cigarette down to the filter and look at the stars over his head. It was easy to forget that he was still there (safe for the warmth that came off his body, the heated closeness of his legs and his arms) until he spoke again. He said, “do you think Desmond’s telling the truth?”

“Who fucking knows with that kid,” Federico mumbled. “Doesn’t even matter what the truth is. Once Phyllis dies, there’s nobody left to protect him. He’ll wish he kept his stupid mouth shut.”

Edward leaned forward then. His shoulder was a weight against Federico’s. He sighed. “You could protect him.”

“ _If_ I believed him.” He tipped closer to Edward, “good sons never defy their father.”

There again was Edward’s arm across his slumped shoulders and Edward’s voice close enough to his ear to be a damp puff of air. He said, “watch out, Federico. That’s how it gets you.” Like he’d heard those words from the same dying woman. Then he laughed as Federico shoved him away. He picked up his flashlight and turned it back on. “Better go in before your _daddy_ comes looking for you.” He shuffled away again, knocking all the pebbles onto the path as he went.

\--

Phyllis was sitting up in bed when Federico took over the post at her bedside. William went away with a sour expression and Phyllis sneered at the door when it was closed. Her weathered-old-face was twisted up in spite and _hate_ so brilliant that it brought a vital pinkness of life back to her gray cheeks. 

“I don’t want you,” she snapped at him. Her hands feathered in the air at him. “Get out of here. There’s no use for men like you, stupid little boys like toy soldiers, following _orders_. Get _out_.”

Federico shrugged and went toward the door. It wasn’t kindness (or common sense) that stopped him from his ordered retreat but his _Mother’s_ command in his head. He had one hand on the polished knob of Phyllis’ room when he turned back to look at her. “Who do you want? Someone has to be here.”

“Why?” she demanded.

“Because the doct—”

But the smack of her lips interrupted him. “I am _old_ but I am not _stupid_. You ignorant little puppet. You march down the stairs and tell Maria that I don’t need to be watched over.”

So he let his hand slip off the door and turned around to press his back against it. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared back at Phyllis (all red with rage now, impotent and trapped). “I won’t do that.”

“Because you’re a coward.”

“She’s my Mother,” Federico said. And if he were going to defy her, it would not be under the guise of repeating the words of his dying Grandmother. He saved up his petty disobediences for the days when he needed them most. “Just tell me who you want—Ezio? Desmond? Mrs. Finch? Mother? Father?”

“Ha!” she shouted at him. But the fire was fading away again. The monitor at her side started beeping and she coughed once-and-twice and it turned into a fit that wracked her bony frame. Federico watched with dispassionate disinterest for a moment before he went closer. When he put a hand on her shoulder, her fist closed around his first two fingers and the grip was so _tight_ that he thought he could _feel_ the terror wracking through her body. The monitor by the bed wailed in alarm and he reached up to silence it. His hand was on her back, over the bumps of her spine as he closed his eyes.

“It’s okay, Grandma,” he said to her (the way he had said it to Petruccio, and it was all lies then too). “I’ll stay with you. It’s okay.” He made his voice low and he spoke in Italian, forced Phyllis to concentrate on what he was saying rather than the spasm of coughs that was robbing her of breath. She was sucking in air through her thin-thin nose. Her eyes closed and her body bowed forward. 

“Sit down,” she said when she’d recovered enough to speak. There were tears on her face (from the effort). When he sat, she regarded him with the same distaste as a moment ago. Finding him to be lacking, still, she said, “go get my boy. Bring him here to me.”

Federico did not have to go far to find Altair. He was always there, on the stairs or in the hall, waiting for a chance to make it through the open door to get at his Grandmother. He went immediately when Federico snapped at him, jiggling as he ran into the room and crawled up onto the bed to lay at his Grandmother’s side. She stroked his hair and listened to him talk-and-talk-and-talk-and-talk.

\--

Mother started dinner by praising William’s efforts at cooking, Mrs. Finch threw a spoon into the sink behind their backs hard enough that everyone looked toward it. Desmond ducked his head so low he might as well crawled under the table when William said how _pleased_ he was to be appreciated for his efforts. 

Altair, sitting at Desmond’s side, was saying, “what’s wrong?” on endless repeat to his (beloved) cousin. The boy was a _genius_ (certified to be smarter than any other man at the table) but he was a moron as he looked around the table of innocent faces trying to figure out what was wrong. 

“Nothing,” was Desmond’s mumbled reply. “Everything’s fine.”

While the royal baby wasn’t smart enough to figure out anything too obvious, he was smart enough to figure out when he was being lied to. Mrs. Finch was sucking her teeth in disapproval behind their backs in time with Altair kicking his chair away from the table. He _threw_ his silverware down into his plate and _left_. 

Desmond looked sideways at the empty space, before he said, “I’m not hungry, excuse me.” Then he was up and out of his seat before anyone could object, running after the baby’s fat retreating feet. 

Federico sighed and his Mother glared at him. He was only saved by Mrs. Finch coming over to stack the abandoned dishes with loud slaps-and-cracks of noise. 

“That can wait,” Mother said.

“I don’t think you’ll be telling me what to do in _my_ kitchen,” Mrs. Finch said. The woman was fearless, dish towel in hands, staring at his Mother with blatant, offensive distaste while all of Mother’s anxious children watched her face with wide-eyes and slack-jawed mouths. “I don’t recall you being _my boss_ , Maria.” 

Mother’s embarrassment was acute fury. 

Claudia saved the situation by bursting into tears. It was a habit she’d adopted one-or-two years ago, something that Federico had watched her work up whenever the tension in the house reached a fever-pitch. He had caught her in the aftermath of one of her fits and sat next to her out in the open-air of their backyard. He elbowed her in her skinny side and she had smiled at him with watery-tears still caught in her lashes over her splotchy red cheeks. Claudia had said, _you don’t have to say thanks._ Because she was a clever-one and she knew how to play their Mother.

Federico escaped after a single plate. He didn’t go up to the rooms but out through the side door. Out in to the dusk of an early evening and set his feet to take him precisely nowhere. 

\--

There was no surprise (least of all from him) when he wound up at the old dog house. Grandpa’s miserable little home where Edward was staying to keep up the pretenses of his exile. Federico didn’t knock but let himself in and went through the unfamiliar rooms until he found Edward in the side-study listening to opera. He was sitting in an oversized chair in nothing but his pants with his bare feet crossed beneath the low table while he drank something out of a decanter and stared at an unfinished game of chess. 

Edward grinned at him, motioned at the chair opposite him and tipped to the side to pick up another bottle and held it out to him when he was close enough to take it. “Who pissed the baby off this time?”

“I don’t want to fucking talk about it,” Federico said. He sat and he drank and he _listened_.

\--

Later, when they were still drinking (almost drunk), they were in the kitchen eating crackers out of the box. Edward was bare-chested and Federico had lost his socks and shoes somewhere along the route between the study and the counter he was sitting on. Edward’s eyes twinkled in the low-kitchen light. Federico’s knees were spread even when he tried to pull them together.   
Edward kept taking the crackers out of the box that Federico was holding (of course he was, they were absorbing the liquor in their guts), and his lips were a quick-quirk of a smirk, while he saying the stupidest things, like, “you remember that last summer before Grandpa died?” 

Federico was too busy jerking the cracker box out of Edward’s reach, lifting it over his head and pushing his hand against Edward’s stupid-warm-skin over the fading lines of one of his tattoos to answer. He was watching the way Edward’s eyes were getting heavy and how his cheeks were blushing rosy. Federico was _preoccupied_ with the hand that grabbed his thigh through his (much-too-thin) pants to care about coming up with a specific memory.

“You know what Grandpa told me?” Edward was right between his knees then. Edward was all against the front of him, five fingers tip-toeing up his arm to curl around his wrist with the pretense of trying to pull the crackers back to where he could get him. 

“What?” Federico asked. 

“He said, you can’t fuck Federico. He’s too _young_.”

Edward dragged him off the counter so he dropped to his feet. The few inches of height he had over Federico was an advantage that there was no overcoming because he was being _kissed_ again with two hands grabbing his ass. (For a minute, maybe, it wasn’t _so bad_ and Federico was standing _there_ with another man’s tongue in his mouth, lost in the foreign sensation of having large-hands kneading at his ass and thinking-thinking about allowing it) but Edward made a noise like a _laugh_ just against his cheek. Oh, and Federico let go of his hair to shove him back against the fridge. He hit it hard enough to rock it backward and then down again. 

“I’m not some fucking girl!” Federico shouted. “You’re fucking _disgusting_.”

The laughing pissed him off worse than anything and Edward was _full of laughing_. He was gripping one hand across his chest while he chuckled up-and-up with the noise. Federico hit him across the face with the broad side of his palm and Edward stopped laughing long enough to punch him.

There was a sharp taste of blood in his mouth and he balled his fists up to return the favor. It was two-hits against Edward’s chest and another one that tried to catch Federico in the face. Then it was Edward’s body in a half-run, one arm wrapped around Federico, throwing them both on the ground. He landed on his face on the ground, the hand around his chest tightening up as Edward ground down against his ass. 

“Fuck,” Federico said. His breath was panting-panting out of his bloody mouth and Edward was digging his teeth into the back of his shoulder as he rocked down against his ass. “Get off me,” Federico snapped at him. He jerked his elbow back and caught the idiot on the side of his face. Then he scrambled up to his feet, stopped only by the hand on his knee dragging him back down. This time he was on his back and Edward was sneaking up between his legs. 

“Hey!” Edward shouted at him. His hand caught Federico by the jaw. 

They were both heaving for breath, both of them stinging with hurts, and Federico’s whole body was humming with _desire_ and _vital hatred_. His every thought soupy with liquor and bad intentions. He bared his teeth at Edward’s smug smile because there were fingers rubbing down his cheek. 

Maybe Federico know he was going to punch the bastard again or maybe it was a surprise but either way he crashed his fists into Edward’s face and used his disorientation to knock him over. They hit the cabinets rolling over so Edward was on his back. Federico dropped his full weight against his cousin’s body, covered him like a blanket before he fisted both his hands in his hair and kissed him again. 

Edward kissed him with blood in his mouth, easy-and- _eager_. His hands were under Federico’s shirt, down the waistband of his pants to grab at his ass like they weren’t fucking _cousins_. The rough pads of his fingers scratching like sandpaper and tugging and pulling at him with haste and no finesse. It was Federico’s mouth on Edward’s neck, biting the rough skin and leaving marks everywhere his teeth wandered but it was Edward’s impatient hands pulling his waist band down until his ass was hanging out of his pants. 

Federico _gasped_ in time with Edward’s smug grin. There were fingers trying to push into ass. He could have explained (in detail) the exact reasons that _that_ would not be happening but Edward took advantage of his distraction to flip them over again. Federico was going to tell him to go fuck himself (most definitely) except he was being shoved over onto his belly again. “You’re not fucking me,” he snapped over his shoulder. “Don’t—”

“Relax,” Edward said as he dug his elbow into Federico’s back. The weight-and-pressure forced him down to his elbows and Edward’s other hand was busy-busy getting his own pants down, he moved his knees to either side of Federico’s just before his dick (hard and hot) was pressing against his ass and sliding down between his thighs. “Fuck,” Edward bit against the back of his neck. 

“Fuck _you_ ,” Federico snapped. His focus was caught between the hard floor knocking against his chin and the sprawl of his fingers trying to find purchase to lift his chest off the ground. Edward’s two hands were pushing at his shoulders, keeping him in pinned in place while he humped against his ass. The sticky-slip of his dick between Federico’s thigh’s a focal point of confusing pleasure. “Fuck,” he said (to himself, mostly) and pressed his forehead against his arm and reached down to tug at his own dick. 

Somewhere behind him, Edward was making noises, little grunts and mumbles, a long series of dropped vowels and consonants all at once becoming real words, something that sounded like, “should’ve told me you liked it so much,” and then dropping out again because Edward’s hands were coiling up against his back, the blunt drag of his fingernails scratching lines that _burned_. He came with a hot streak of come all across the inside of Federico’s thigh and his body collapsing against his back. It was his mouth, always smiling, with a laugh against his shoulders and Edward’s hand down between his thighs tugging at his dick with him.

When it was over, and Federico’s head was _spinning-spinning-spinning_ , he shrugged Edward off his back and got to his feet with momentum shoving him toward the nearest exit. He dragged his pants up as he went, felt Edward’s hand on his ankle and turned around only long enough to kick him in the chest. 

\--

In Grandmother’s house, in his bathroom, he sat in the shower with his back to the ball and his foot against the door of it, like he could keep the world at bay. The water fell-and-fell-and-fell catching on his rough knuckles poking up from where he’d run his hands through his hair.   
In the shower, the damage felt immense. Every part of his body was another bit that had been pawed at and touched. The bruises under his skin felt blue-and-deep, sinking straight down to the bone.

In the mirror, the damage was minimal. It was only worthy of note where Edward’s teeth had dug into his shoulder. It was easy enough to cover with a collared shirt and modestly done-up buttons.

\--

At breakfast, Mother took note of his shirt with a specific tilt of her head and a vague tightening at the corners of her eye. She made sure to point it out to anyone that cared to notice things, she said, “at least one of my sons has discovered what the top three buttons of his shirt are for.” Then she turned her full attention to Ezio who had made an art form out of being embarrassing over how proud he was of his slow-growing chest hair.

“He only discovered what the buttons are for because he probably got laid with one of maids,” Ezio countered. His every word was a petulant, pouty little noise. The whole sum of them an aggravation of insult that might have made Federico slap him any other day. The average age of the employees that staffed Phyllis’ grand house was approximately forty six. 

Rather than protest his standards (even as non-existent as they generally were), Federico winked at Ezio. And Mother rolled her eyes. “The last thing we need now is to add another scandal. It’s best to practice celibacy while we are here and if you cannot manage that, exercise discretion.” Then she threw her hands in the air over her stupid sons and their stupid dicks.

\--

It was Claudia, perpetually a pain, that said, “where’s Edward anyway? Is he coming to see Grandma today? I like Edward. He’s a pirate.”

Federico had tried ignoring her and when that failed him, he dropped the book he’d been trying to work through reading to glare at her annoying little face. “He’s not a pirate, he’s a fucking disgrace to the family that got sent away. If you must idolize someone, at least make sure they aren’t embarrassing.”

The thing about Claudia was that she had their-mother’s-eyes, but she didn’t have Mother’s heart. Claudia had a soul (still, at least) and she saw things through the cloudy glass of emotion. Mother would have grilled him about Edward and Claudia just scrunched up her nose and stamped her feet. She bit screams into her lips as she said, “this is why you don’t live with us anymore! You ruin everything.” Then she was stomping away to the house.

\--

Federico wasn’t hiding (because there was nothing to hide from) but he’d found his way to a pond in the garden and to a bench tucked behind a bush. It was a perfect enough place to hide, deep enough into the gardens that nobody would find him casually but also not so far removed from the house that anyone could accuse him of purposefully hiding. So he sat and he stared at the stupid bushes that hadn’t changed since he was a child, and he listened to the dribbling water that moved in the little pond to the side.

He thought about nothing as long as he could manage it. 

When Edward found him (as inevitable as that was), he came along with shuffling feet and his shoulders slumped in shame. That was a curious insult to top off the confusion of things that Federico couldn’t work out (properly) from the night before. On the one hand, there was no reason that Edward should have wanted to fuck him and on the other hand there was really no reason that Federico should have allowed or participated in anything of the sort. 

Edward-was-sober (what a change that was) and Federico was not-looking at him so he didn’t know what the fuck he looked like when Edward said, “I just need to know if—” The silence lingered and tripped, licked and lapped with indecisive anxiety before Edward finally let out a sigh like defeat saying, “I assaulted you.”

That was a _real funny_ kind of idea. It was one that he was rocking over in his head again and again, trying to work out at what point he could push the blame on someone else and keep none of it for himself. He’d protested, certainly, and that meant he wasn’t interested. Any arousal was the fault of the other party. (None of it, not even a little bit of it, had anything to do with wanting it. None at all.) There was a bruise on Edward’s cheek, light beneath his tanned skin. “What was your plan if you did? Tell me not to tell someone? Who the fuck would I tell? My Mother? My _Father_?”

“Your Mother would believe I raped you,” Edward said. (And what an _ugly_ word to use so casually.) “If only because it would violate the terms of my exile.” He shuffled on his feet and sighed impatiently. “I need to know, Federico.”

“You didn’t _assault_ me.” But since they were here, since they were having this stupid conversation, since he knew what Edward felt like rutting against his ass and since he remembered how the bastard’s tongue tasted in his mouth. “That was the only reason Grandpa gave you, huh? Too young?”

Edward looked _exhausted_ , “please don’t.”

“Do you think Phyllis knows you want to fuck me?” Federico asked. But maybe it was more important to address, “ _why_?”

“God damn it, Federico. Do you have to do this? Why do you have to do this? Why can’t you just let something go? I was drunk and you were drunk—that’s it. So why don’t we go back to ignoring one another until I leave?”

“Fine,” Federico said.

“Good.” Then Edward rubbed the back of his neck and stared at Federico another half-minute, looked at his shirt and his jacket, at the slouch of his body and then turned halfway around to leave and paused. The pause was fractional, just a split second (or two) and then gone again. He huffed a sigh as he went.

\--

Mother was straight-backed and regal in the little office she’d set up to attend the affairs of Phyllis dying. Father came and went according to the whims of his business, easily removed from the situation by the stroke of luck of having no intricate binding that kept him close to Phyllis. His support was exclusively reserved for Mother. 

Federico stopped just beyond the chairs on the opposite side of Mother’s desk and looked at her. “Ezio said you wanted me.”

Then she finished writing something in her ledger, set the pen in the binding and closed it. When she looked up, there was a hard-edged skepticism in her face. Her words were brief, “I sincerely hope you developed a peculiar taste for older women, Federico.” Then she leaned back into her seat and rested her hands in her lap. She did not offer him a place to sit but looked at him with her perfectly-placid face. The implication that she _knew_ was as clear as anything but Federico shifted his weight back and brought his arms up to cross over his chest. 

Oh-he-had been born with his Mother’s all-seeing eyes and she might _suspect_ him of something but she didn’t _know_ (yet) and that was an advantage that he was willing to exploit while it lasted. “Gertie has a young soul,” he said. The woman he spoke of had the soul of a withered tree and skin made of bark. (That wasn’t to say that he wouldn’t have had sex with her if she ever seemed interested, it was just to say that his Mother would never believe he was capable of it.) “Was there anything else, Mother?”

“No,” she said. All clipped-and-neat-edges before she waved her hand at him and sent him off.

\--

When it was his turn to babysit Phyllis again, Edward was on his way out (looking remarkably respectable with a button down and a pair of khakis) with his head ducked and his hands to himself. Phyllis was snoozing on the bed for the first half-an-hour and only woke up because she was startled by a cough. It was only one but the spike of fear that shocked through her was enough to rouse her to full wakefulness. 

Phyllis eyed him like she was working out a complicated math problem and then flattened the blankets out across her lap. There was nothing human in Phyllis, and there hadn’t been for the whole of Federico’s life. There was no sympathy (no worry, no accusation at all) on her face when she said, “was it worth it?” With a motion toward him. “Regret is exhausting. Save it for things worth the bother.”

“Are you capable of regret?” Federico asked.

There was no smile on her face but a soft shrug of her shoulders. “I thought I was. If there is a God, I will surely rule Hell. The devil will be my lapdog.” There was a rustle at the door and Phyllis glanced over toward it, “go let my boy in. You can leave. Send Desmond if your master demands it.”

“She’s not my _master_.” The important distinction was that she was his _Mother_ and he was her _son_ , but not her slave. 

Phyllis could feign sympathy but it made her face crooked. The paper thinness of her cheeks made the look of maddening sympathy all the more insulting. Her hands were one over the other, settled like little birds in her lap. “If you are not the master of yourself, you must bow to whoever lays claim to you.” Her eyebrow lifted to dare him to deny it. There was no point in arguing against the truth, so he got out of his chair and went to find her precious son.

\--

In the library, Ezio found him with a grin on his face and a quick slap of his quick hand, knocking hard against Federico’s shoulder. Ezio was all but bouncing with enthusiasm when he said, “who was it really? Let me see it.”

“See what?” Federico asked. He was content to ignore Ezio (as he usually did), to turn the pages in his book and read the words that blurred out too small to be decipherable. He was concentrating on the act of reading so hard that he neglected to take into account how much it annoyed Ezio to be ignored. And so he was underprepared to fend off the attack at his collar. Ezio’s fingers weren’t slim or particularly quick but he was strong enough when he wound his hand in Federico’s shirt and yanked it so hard the buttons pulled loose from it. He was giggling as his hand slid across Federico’s collarbone. 

“You don’t even have any—ow!” Ezio was laughing when Federico punched him in the arm. They fell on the floor of the library, rolling on old rugs and knocking into the spiny legs of chairs that looked brittle but were as strong as steel. Ezio pushed and shoved and slapped at him, wiggled free from Federico’s grabbing hands and threw himself across his back. 

With his brother’s crushing weight on his back, Federico had a moment of clarity to ponder if this sort of thing was arousing to him outside the sticky-alcohol-confines of Edward’s living room. In the brief seconds he had before Ezio yanked his shirt down in the back and stopped his shoving and chortling, Federico had managed to assess his entire body and found that there was nothing appealing about being shoved around by his baby brother.

(So there was that much, at least, to be thankful for.)

“What the hell were you doing?” Ezio asked. The genius pushed two of his fingers against the darkest bruise he found on the back of Federico’s shoulders and then tugged his shirt down farther to stare at the scratches there. “Was she riding you like a pony?”

Federico shoved himself up onto his knees and Ezio fell to the side with a laugh that proved how mortally stupid and yet intolerably proud he was about it. “Oh yes,” Federico said, “a magnificent steed and when I fucked her, it was from behind while I made horse noises.”

Ezio stopped laughing to stare up at him. His stupid face caught in immature joy that made his eyes sparkle even as his mouth fell open. “Really?” he whispered.

“No, asshole,” then Federico threw the closest book down at him and tugged his shirt back into place. “Aren’t you supposed to be keeping the baby company? Maybe you should do what you’re asked for once in your life.” Then he threw another book and it hit the floor when Ezio rolled out of the way.

\--

In the evening, when Claudia came to collect him for dinner, she said, “why can’t Edward eat with the family? He’s part of our family! Why doesn’t he have to come eat with us? I wish he’d come eat with us, then he can tell me about the rest of his tattoos and his ship!” And she jogged down the stairs in front of Federico, jumped to the bottom and looked back at him with clear pride for her acrobatics. 

Federico stepped off the bottom step, all flat-footed and absent any pride. He rolled his eyes about her monologue about Edward. “What do you mean finish? When have you had time to talk to him about his tattoos?”

“He was _here_ ,” she said, “to see Grandmother. I asked him about the ones on his arms and he told me about them and how he always wanted to be a pirate and there are more tattoos all over his body!”

“And did he show you those?” Federico asked.

Claudia crossed her arms over her chest, her knobby little knees shifting under her skirt as she turned one of her feet out and rested her weight to the side. She looked at him like she was a thousand years old, like she’d heard every bit of advice in the world and came to one solid conclusion about it all. But she said, “what if he did?”

“Stay away from Edward,” Federico said. He put his hand on her shoulder and ducked his head low. “Don’t ask him about his tattoos, don’t get a crush on him, don’t waste your time. He’s _not_ a part of our family and it’s because he isn’t safe. Stay away from him.”

The hurt on his sister’s face was more pronounced that the lingering pain in his shoulders caused by the bite marks and the scratches. It was worth more to him (more damaging certainly) than the vivid-loop of memory that was stuck in all of his muscles. He didn’t care as much about the taste of Edward’s mouth in his or the reckless slap of his hips against Federico’s body as he did about the way Claudia’s lip stuck out and real confusion and hurt made her eyebrows wrinkle up. 

“I hate this family,” she said to him. In that space between their faces where it was safest. Then she turned her head away from him and pulled her whole body away. “Whatever,” she said in the next minute. “He’s still cooler than you.” She wiped her face with both hands and carried herself to the kitchen.

\--

Father came, in the morning, looking grim and fresh-faced when he found Federico smoking cigarettes (certainly not) out on the back patio. He raised a cautious eyebrow to acknowledge that he could both smell the lingering smoke and see the curl of gray from behind his back where compulsion (but not common sense) made him hide it. Rather than address the many objections that his (Mother) family had about the topic of smoking, Father said, “it has come to your Mother’s attention that you have upset your sister.”

That wasn’t even worth responding to.

“Is there something that you would like to tell me about Edward?” Father never showed much on his face, he didn’t let it wiggle into his voice but it hung on his shoulders and it ate away at his chest. Each new worry made his Father thinner-and-thinner until sooner or later there would be nothing left of him. 

Federico stuck the cigarette back in his mouth and pulled the thick-gray-smoke as deep into his lungs as he could manage it. He kept it there swirling-and-swirling around (filling him up with tar) until he couldn’t hold it any longer then he tipped his head and blew it up toward the ceiling. He rubbed the butt of it between his fingers, extinguishing the last bit of it between his thumb and forefinger before tucking it into his pocket. When he looked at his father, his tongue was across-his-lips fighting against the hesitating dryness of his mouth. “It’s not enough that he broke my nose? He taught me to smoke? We got drunk by the rose bushes? That was enough for Grandma wasn’t it?”

“Your Mother worries,” Father said. But also, “you did not answer my question.”

“There is _nothing_ about Edward which I wish to tell you, Father. Except what you already know.” Every word was perfectly, perfectly true. And surely that was the only thing that earned him the nod of his father’s head and the dismissal from the conversation.

\--

It was Phyllis, after breakfast that said, “That’s a funny lie you’re telling. Your Mother asked me what I knew about what Edward did to you as a child. It’s funny how easily she’s willing to blame _him_. There’s not a lot about you to like. But, you’ve always understood you get what you earn. You have a fair mind. I like that about you.” 

Federico wasn’t afraid of a dying woman. He looked her right in the face and he thought (so loudly it must be broadcasting on radios nearby) all about what he’d _earned_. “What did you tell her when she came and asked?”

Phyllis was leaning against the headboard, covered in blankets that made her thin-bones seem like they had some lingering meat on them. Her hook-like-hands were dug into the soft rolls of the sheets that covered her wasted-away-legs. The whole charade benefited nobody (save Altair who could never-ever know who very close to death his Grandmother truly was). There was a gray-exhaustion in her face that hadn’t been there only the day before. “I told her nothing. It was the truth. Everything that Edward ever did to you is public knowledge. You carry it on your face.”

So he started to nod but her voice was slippery-and-sliding when she said,  
“Calvin thought it was Edward that wanted you. He was so sure of it. I suppose that I should make a donation to some charity in his name since he is no longer alive to collect his due.” Phyllis raised her eyebrows at the mute-numb-shock that took over his body. Every inch of his skin seemed to go cold and tingle all at the same time. She leaned forward to pat the back of his hand. “I should have remembered who your Mother was. You’re both snakes, you know. You can drive any man to ruin.”

“I didn’t want that,” Federico said.

“Didn’t you? After dark in the gardens? Edward was a handsome boy, you were an awkward, gangly thing—you’ve never been the most pleasant to look at. Edward liked you, he let you follow him around, he gave you a taste of rebellion and when you needed him to, he took the blame. I supposed I don’t have to make a donation. You fucked him first, after all.”

“Edward didn’t _fuck_ me.” That was an important distinction to make. It was important that it was _known_ and there was nobody around spreading lies that didn’t need to be spread. Whatever they had done, it had not been that. (Close enough, maybe, but just far enough away to matter.)

“Keep track of your debts, Federico,” Phyllis told him with a nod that called him a liar. “Don’t give any less than you owe.” 

\--

Federico was in the kitchen, digging into the selection of wine when Mrs. Finch came back from attending to whatever took her away. She was a busy-woman, always-moving, as gray and white with age now as she had been when he was a stupid toddler. When she saw him, she looked over her shoulder back toward the hallway she’d come from and then she motioned her hands at him ‘shoo-shoo’ without saying a word. But her finger touched her lips as she nodded toward the side.

So he nodded his head and he took his stolen bottle with him as he went outside. He had a knife in his pocket (a gift from his sister who though he needed a pocket knife) and he used that to pull the cork out of the bottle. 

His feet carried him and Federico followed. Around and around, out through the long rows that would turn into magnificent rows of flowers. He ran his fingers across the pruned tops, caught the tips on the hard edges of branches trying to grow against the gardener’s will and thought (with a laugh, a belly-deep sort of chuckle) about how Phyllis wouldn’t live to see her precious fucking flowers coming back to life. It was a _violently_ pleasing thought. All at once a burst of sun inside of his ribs that glowed-and-glowed until he thought it would consume him.

When his feet got lazy and his body grew heavy with the early-spring-chill, he collapsed on a bench. It was one of the hidden benches, around enough corners that nobody found stupid boys with porn magazines full of wrinkled pages, smoking cigarettes stolen from convenience stores just inside of town. Federico tipped his head back, closed his eyes and _let that sit_ , center stage in his head. 

He pulled up the image of Edward pressed against his side, the drag of his sticky-long hair against Federico’s sweating-cheeks. The bluntness of his fingers pointing at the pages of the magazine Federico was holding and his voice providing unneeded narrative about what he’d-love-to-do.

“Fuck,” Federico said with the wine bottle resting against his thigh. His fist around the neck of it, the liquid sloshing around inside of it providing a poor substitute for acceptance. “Fuck.” If he were prone to bouts of childish rage the way Ezio was, he might have started kicking things. He could have exhausted himself with it. 

\--

There was a certain inertia to his life. This Federico had taken note of when he was a child (long before he discovered he’d inherited his mother’s all-seeing-eyes). The things that were going to happen, the ones that could be felt in the quivering shake of the ground beneath his feet, were simply inevitable. There was no point in hiding from them, no point in denying them, no point in trying to stall them. 

Edward would have found him no matter where he hid. The only benefit hiding in the garden gave them was the illusion of privacy.

“You son of a bitch!” was Edward’s greeting. The quick stride of his legs as he doubled-his-speed as soon as he laid eyes on Federico. His hands were reaching out, clutching like claws into Federico’s shirt to pull him off the bench. And it was easy to go, easy to be dragged to his feet and shaken like an insolent child. Easy to roll his eyes at Edward’s anger when the spit from Edward’s screaming mouth landed on his face. “You _liar_! You are lying to her or you _lied to me_.” Every word was a shake, a flex of Edward’s magnificent arms, tanned by the summer sun, trapped under his clothes. (Federico was almost drunk enough to wonder if he pulled open the length of Edward’s sleeve if the sun would pour out.) “Which is it?” Edward shouted at him.

Federico tipped his head back as he bubbled up with laughter.

Edward threw him backward and watched him fall on his ass in the pebbles that lined the walk way. He knocked his head against the ground and skidded his elbow just hard enough to rip open his shirt. The pain was hot-and-bloody, all cool around the edges where the air hit it. But Edward was _furious_ with his hands in fists and his shoulders rolling up and forward. His frown was _monstrous_ and it did nothing to cover the worry-and-the _fear_. “What?” he demanded.

Federico stuck his heels into the rocks and lifted one-then-two of his arms to tuck his hands behind his head and looked up at Edward. His knees were sprawled open (for comfort, of course) when he said, “you’re not laughing at me now. Why isn’t it funny now? It was funny before.”

When Edward ducked down to grab him, he pulled Federico up only high enough to punch him. By all accounts it was hardly worthy of note, the sort of hot-and-sticky pain that spread out thin and grew fatter but it wasn’t _acute_. It cut through the fog of wine, pulled him forward again into something approaching full-consciousness. Federico hit Edward back, slapped him across the ear with the blunt part of his palm. “Not on my _face_ ,” he said. 

Edward spit curses at the ground and then grabbed him by the shirt. His knees were spread across Federico’s body and they dug into the rocks when he yanked Federico up. One of his hands was leaving his shirt to grab at Federico’s face like he wanted to crush it between his fingers-and-thumb. The look on his face was a confusion of arousal-and- _hate_ , the sort of look that made a dumb man (like Federico was) feel _powerful_. The pink spots of color on Edward’s face spread across his cheeks, rose like awful splotches on his neck and down under the collar of his shirt. 

The ground should have been _shuddering_ what with the disaster that was heading toward them but it was only Federico shaking apart in the final-final seconds before he brought both his hands up to grab Edward’s hair and dragged him down to kiss him. Edward resisted only a breath, just long enough to say that he had and then he was shoving Federico flat on his back in the rocks, gripping his face and pressing their mouths hard enough together his teeth were cutting the insides of his lips. 

The kiss moved with the motion of Edward’s body, the angry way his hands pressed against Federico’s chest, the way his hands yanked at the shirt in his way. His nails were dragging down Federico’s belly to pull at his belt and then his pants. The button-and-zipper were early victims, yanked down before Edward’s hands were rolling the waistband of his pants down toward his thighs. 

“Edward,” he said between one breath and the next. He caught Edward’s wrist and was abruptly rolled onto his belly for the trouble. His head was throbbing between the punch and the wine, but he dragged his knees up under him to lift his body up. It was (perfect) because Edward was curled up against him, knocking his still-trapped dick against Federico’s ass as he mouthed at the back of his neck. “Damn it, Edward,” he gasped. 

The slick-wet-sounds of the bastard’s mouth and the popping noise of his fingers pulled free from his fat lips was an obnoxious radio show just behind his ear. Even handicapped as he was by the wine floating in his brain, Federico had enough sense to know what was happening, intelligent as he was, it was still a surprise when the spit-slicked-finger pushed into him. 

“Fuck,” Federico said. The intrusion was caught between _insulting_ and _painful_ , not enough of either to be defined. The subsequent thrusts of Edward’s finger were _abrupt_ and dragging, the slide far too dry to be anything better than uncomfortable (but could easily verge into worse). He reached back to slap at Edward’s arm and dug his knees into the ground to pull himself forward. His pants were caught and slid down his legs, twisted up when the turned over again so that he had to yank his foot out of his shoe and pant leg to have any free motion. He shoved both hands against Edward’s chest when he crawled right up between his thighs. 

“Act like a bitch, get fucked like a bitch,” Edward said to him. 

“You are not fucking me with spit,” Federico said. The objection was small; the sort of thing that got overlooked when it was followed up by the crash of Edward’s body against his. The roughness of his jeans was abrasive to the fine skin along the insides of his thighs, a confusion set of stimuli for his poor dick trapped in the space between them. Edward kissed him with one hand pulling at his face and the other pinning his arm to the side. It was easy enough to fall into, to bite back into the kiss and push back against the barely-tolerable pressure of Edward over him. “Fuck,” he said when Edward moved down to rake his teeth down Federico’s neck.   
Both of his hands were pinning Federico’s hips to the ground, the pads of his fingers each a distinct pressure even before his teeth dug into the meat of his shoulder just beneath his shirt. Federico didn’t think he had a thing for being manhandled but his dick was hard and his head was getting fuzzy about the specifics of his objections. His own hands had found their way to Edward’s stringy-blond-hair and they were twisting up in the lazy waves of it. 

“I fucking hate you,” Edward said like he was trying to cover the sound of his zipper being pulled open. His dick was vividly hot against Federico’s, knocking against his belly as Edward rocked against his body, and when that wasn’t enough, Edward was kissing him as he was jerking off between their bodies. 

Some part of him must have thought that he could have let go of Edward’s hair to touch him anywhere else. He could have touched him _everywhere_ , down the expanse of his wide shoulders, down his back, feeling the muscles all the way down to his ass. He could have dug his nails into the lines of Edward’s well-hidden tattoos. But he did nothing, he held on and he pushed his tongue into Edward’s mouth, answering every aggravated moan with a bitter groan until the noises twisted and got mixed up. 

But it was Edward’s stuttered little sound, the abrupt end to the whole encounter when his come landed hot-and-sticky against Federico’s bare stomach, spreading out as far his ribs. And then Edward was one hand in the rocks and his head ducked down to look at his handiwork. His cheeks were red and his lips were irritated from kissing. There was a look of miserable satisfaction on his face just before his fingers ran across the white smears and then he lifted them up to rub it across Federico’s cheek and his mouth, pushed it past his lips and against his teeth with a grim sneer. Then his hand was grabbing Federico’s face again. 

When Federico jerked his face away, Edward laughed.

Federico shoved him back with one hand and wiped the semen off his face with the back of his arm. He dug his heels in to move his whole body beyond reach and Edward let him. The distance was more awkward than the closeness. The painful parts of Federico’s body were singing in unison, nagging him away from the lagging arousal that had been so persistent only a moment ago. “You’re a fucking disgrace,” Federico said. 

That must have been _hilarious_ because Edward was _falling over_ backward in the rocks, hands across his chest as he _laughed_. And when it stopped, the awful sawing of it went dull and then _silent_ , he let out a long breath and said, “I’m aware.” Then he looked at Federico, eyes narrowed and hands all to himself. His dick was still sticking out of his pants, flopped uselessly against his body but on display nonetheless. “You drive me fucking crazy.”

Federico pulled his pants back on right, crossed his legs and shrugged his shoulders. “You’re a terrible fuck.”

Edward snorted at that. Then he covered his face with both hands. “Fuck,” he said, “fucking Christ.” He tugged his pants up but didn’t button them, sat up and rubbed his fingers across his mouth before he said, “fuck,” and then he was getting up to his feet, reaching his hand out to offer Federico help to get off the ground. “Come on, you look like shit. You can use the bathroom at my place.”

That was awfully-fucking-sweet considering the circumstances. But Federico was sore with new wounds, exhausted with old worry, carrying the burden of his _fair mind_ and the sloshing left overs of the wine’s effects. He took the hand that was offered to him. 

\--

Federico scrubbed his face clean in the bathroom, drank a glass of water in the kitchen while he stared at the fridge. Phyllis’ fucking voice was knocking around his skull saying _never give any less than you owe_. Federico was staring-and-blind from it, working out a plan of attack inside his skull. 

\--

Edward was slouching in Grandpa’s big-chair in the den, listening to opera when Federico walked up to him. He’d left his shirt in the kitchen because it was superfluous at best. He stopped just beyond Edward’s knees, watched the guilt settling all over his body. There was nothing furious-or-righteous in Edward’s face when he looked up, nothing at all but that naked fear because Federico-was-a-fucking _monster_ made up of all the things that could destroy Edward. 

There were bruises on his chest, little red marks on his waist where hands had held him down. His mouth was still tight from being kissed so hard. Federico said, “suck my dick.” Maybe he just wanted to know what Edward would do. He wanted to see the shock cross his face; wanted to take back the easy-arrogance of superiority he’d stolen.   
Oh, and Edward’s face was _precious_ : embarrassed but not surprised as he stared back. The soft lines of his body turned hard, his hands dug into the arms of the chair as he dragged his body forward across it. When he lifted, Federico braced himself to be hit again and was confused when the hands dropped to pull open his belt. Since they were _there_ , since they were _drowning_ anyway, he said, “take your shirt off,” just before his own pants were yanked down to his thighs (again). When Edward didn’t move to immediately comply, Federico leaned down to pull his shirt up from the back, over his head and down his arms. 

The den was _dark_ , full of shadows and no light, but Edward’s skin was so _golden_ it _glowed_. The heavy muscle bunched and relaxed as he moved. His expression hidden by his hair as he leaned forward out of the chair and landed on his knees. Edward’s hand was rough-skin against his dick, stroking him to full hardness without a word. 

Federico ran his fingers through the length of his hair to pull it up-and-back, away from his face. He was staring down when Edward’s tongue ran across his lips and his mouth slid open around Federico’s dick. “Oh,” he said. Perhaps he was expected Edward to hit him, and maybe he thought that if Edward didn’t hit that he’d hardly participate but nothing in the world could have prepared him for the way Edward _sucked_ him. 

When he was done, his lips were pink-and-red, his face was all spotted-with-color and he climbed up Federico’s body with his hands leading the way. His fingers were broad and tight around Federico’s neck-and-face (to keep him still) in the last few breaths before he spit the splatter of semen-and-spit on him. It stuck on his cheeks and his eyelids, was heavy in his lashes and hot-slime on his lips. 

“You’re a coward and a liar,” Edward said beyond the blackness of his eyelids. “You always have been.” 

\--

It probably started when Federico’s hand glanced across the broad metal buckle of his belt. Maybe it was the slow slip of the spit-and-semen dragging down over his lips, sneaking between the seam of his mouth to drip the taste onto his tongue. It could have been the dismissiveness of Edward’s words.

It started like this:

Federico wiped his face with his whole hand (the left one) and dragged the sticky-wet-mess across the side of his pants. He was pulling those up with his right hand but it might have been his left that slid through the belt loop it didn’t really matter which hand found it because his whole body was _certain_. 

The belt slithered like a snake, belly-down in dirt, through the loops of his pants even as he buttoned them with one finger and one thumb. If Edward heard the sound (or the merry jingle of the buckle) it didn’t register in his body language. Because Edward was half-turned, cupping his hand around his mouth, caught between maintaining the venom in his voice and letting that guilt of uncertainty drown him. 

That didn’t matter because Federico looped the belt and coughed a laugh like a last-second warning. “I’m not a coward.” But then he moved, a long stretch of motion that started at his feet and rippled upward, sliding into place motion-after-motion until he was swinging the belt. Edward saw it, the recognition dawned on his face in the last seconds before the belt would have landed across his face and his chest and those precious few breaths were long enough for him to bring his arm up. The sound of the leather hitting his skin was so fucking _loud_ in the closeness of the dark den. 

“Son of a bitch!” Edward shouted at him. “Fuck!” followed after it. The skin on his arm was split open on one side, and brilliant-bloody-red in a fat stripe where the belt landed. The thing about Edward (the important thing to remember about Edward) was that he was raised by a family outcast, removed of the fine politics of the larger family. There was no fairness laced into his bones, no acceptance forced into his gut. He didn’t understand the concept of retribution because he had never been forced to balance the scales with his own fucking blood. Slights-and-insults were settled with fists and that was simply the way it had always been. (Except here, where Edward was running his fingers across the cut-open skin on his arm while his face lost that worried-whining look and went feral instead.) “No,” he said (with his voice so perfectly calm), “you never were a coward exactly.” He looked up from the blood dripping off his elbow to stare directly at Federico’s face, his whole body cocked with arrogance and certainty. “But you remember what I did to you last time, don’t you?” 

That was hard to forget. Federico flipped the belt so it was over his shoulder, matching the lazy stance of his body to the aggressive slant of of Edward’s. He motioned his fingers forward like drawing him closer and couldn’t figure out if the flash of heat going through his body was fear-or-not. 

\--

Phyllis said: “keep track of your debts; never give less than you owe.”

Out in the gardens, when Federico was a teenager that was too rowdy to be around the dying-angel-baby, there was Edward with his porn magazines split open like the milky-white thighs of the models contained in them. It was his blunt fingers, and bitten-back nails poking at the gaudy sprawl of the women in the pictures. Edward luxuriated in the filth of it, marinated to ripe perfection in the easy joy of paper sheets. 

Federico had perfected the fine art of slow his panting breath to a whisper of noise, leaning his shoulder against Edward’s body with the pretense of needing to see better, keeping one hand down between their bodies where the meat of Edward’s lean-and-tight thigh was spread across the backs of his fingers. He had memorized the smell of Edward (cigarette smoke, sweat and cheap deodorant) with one hand down between his own legs, palming at his insistent dick pulsing like _begging_ for him to do something more than just _look_. 

Edward always grinned at him and slung an arm around his shoulders, leaned their head together with his breath that tasted like Grandpa’s peppermints (stolen from the glass jars in the doghouse) to cover the ashy taste of the cigarettes and he would say, “what would you do with a girl like that?”

Federico treated the women in the pictures like trash, fucked them in graphic detail, degrading them in sexual fantasy with every one of his bold-and-fearless words. Edward’s breathing changed and the easy sprawl of his body was restless, the arm across Federico’s shoulders would tighten and drag him closer.

One summer afternoon, bored of the usual game, Federico leaned in against Edward and he said, “I’d fuck her in the ass.” Because it was a loop of noise in his head, the static _want_ he kept ignoring in his body. His waking mind was stowing away his fantasies until they crept up in his dreams-and-daydreams: Federico was jerking off in his room thinking about the weight of Edward’s body against his side, the smell of his neck and the ashy-peppermint taste that caught in his breath. The words were a bold insult, and Edward’s body tightened like a whip, starting at his face and going all the way down to the restless motion of his feet. 

Edward’s wet mouth opened against his temple. “You’re a freak, Federico.” Oh-but-he- _smiled_.

\--

The fight started in the doorway of the den: Federico wrapped the belt around his knuckles and Edward shoved him backward into the brief hallway that led to the other living spaces. It broke through the house like a storm, knocking into walls and tripping over stairs. It dragged up the stairs, skidded across the floor with rug-burnt elbows and dirty curses, biting hurtful words with blunt teeth on tender skin. 

Edward punched him in the ribs with more _intent_ than the whole sum of their fight up to that moment had managed. The pain of it blossomed outward, stealing his breath and his ability to coordinate his body into any sort of actions save for the initial, instinctive coil to protect himself. His fingers made a feeble attempt to stay closed around the loop of leather on his hand as Edward stripped it off. His chest and sides were blotted with the hard-red-impact marks of Federico’s fists, his jaw was a discolored mess. 

“Fuck,” Federico wheezed. 

The buckle on the belt was jingling in the last few seconds before it looped around his wrist and Edward’s rolled him onto his gut and held him down with a knee in the center of his back. “You know what the problem with you is, Federico? You want to know what the fucking problem is? You never _know_ ,” Edward growled the word as he looped the belt around Federico’s other wrist and pulled it tight so his hands were held together behind his back. “When to fucking quit.” 

Edward’s weight was sitting back, his knees were spread around Federico’s body but it was an implied impediment rather than an actuality. The way his hand against the rug under Federico’s cheek was an implied _threat_ , the weight over his back was a curtain of warmth that _implied_ a promise it wasn’t going to follow through with. 

Federico rolled in a long, graceless motion, pulled his legs out from in between Edward’s as he stared at his face. His shoulders were raw with rug burn (already), his mouth was bitten raw on the inside, the whole of his body felt _bruised_. He looped his legs around Edward’s waist, pulled him down as he cocked his head to the side. “I don’t quit until I’m beaten,” Federico countered. 

Then it was a hand gripping his face, the hard press of fingers digging into the blunt bone of his jaw. Edward said, “maybe you should take a good look at the situation again, cousin.” His free hand was down between their bodies, pawing at Federico’s (hard-as-steel) dick with an expression of comical exaggeration. “ _Such a freak_.” 

“Edward,” Federico said. It was an objection more than an entreaty because Edward was pulling his pants off again, rolling them down toward his knees with one hand sliding up the inside of his thigh to push his knees toward his chest. The smug bastard smiled right at his face with two of his thick fingers pulling out of his spit-slicked lips. “You fucking moron, you can’t fuck someone with--” 

There was no possible way to keep from arching away from Edward’s blunt finger pushing back into his ass. It was _uncomfortable_ (if not outright painful) but there was no escape exactly. Edward was hanging onto his thigh, pushing his finger in deeper while he flinched like it was _rough_ for _him_. “I’m not stupid. If I let you go, we’ll have to fight this out again.” That was the most logic he’d ever heard from Edward in the entirety of their lives. (And he wasn’t even wrong.) “Just relax.”

It was a fucking game of chicken, like the one they played out in the garden, hitting one another as hard as they could to see who would cry first. (And Federico had won that, again-and-again, taken a beating that left him aching for weeks because he couldn’t lose to a _loser_ like Edward.) The flutter of _real worry_ was electric in every part of his body, some recess of his head knew that Edward wouldn’t _really_ fuck him if he said he couldn’t but the look on his face and the teasing press of his second finger (an unpleasant thought, and surely a less pleasant reality if allowed) was rubbing damply like looking for the best angle to push inside with the first. 

“Damn it,” Federico said. He pushed his foot against Edward’s thigh and used it to move away, scraped the raw rug burn farther down his shoulders and wrenched the belt around his wrists tighter. “You won, but we need _real lube_ you smug fucking asshole.”

Edward smiled at him. “Yeah?”

“Get off me,” Federico said. 

Edward was smart enough to move back. He even helped drag Federico up to his feet and ran his hand down to touch the belt that was coiled around his wrists. Rather than take it off, he hesitated with a stupid expression on his face that tried and failed to be thoughtful. But he said, “Are we really doing this?” with far more thoughtfulness than Federico would have credited him with. When he looked up, there was some lingering fear-and-worry, “do you really want to?”

“Now you ask?” Federico snapped back at him. “ _After_ you pull my pants off and stick your finger in my ass? You’re so fucking noble.” Every word was like throwing matches on a fire, Edward’s jaw got tighter and tighter until he slapped a hand against Federico’s bare chest and pushed him back against the closest door frame. His mouth was a hard press across Federico’s, his tongue an invading force. Close-as-he was, the few inches of height he had on Federico was exaggerated. And his hands were gripping at Federico’s ass (of course) as he vibrated low-noises into the kiss. When Federico moved it was only to go sideways, toward the open door and into the room Edward had claimed to sleep in. “Do you have lube?” he asked with his head tipped back to free his mouth. 

“Yes,” Edward said into the skin of his neck. His hand closed around Federico’s elbow and turned him around to shove him face-first into the blankets. He said, “stay there.” 

“Where would I go?” Federico asked the blankets. Other than working his pants off his legs, he just enjoyed the softness of the blankets under his sore body. Edward came back naked, looking glorious and intimidating with one of his hands gripping his condom-shiny dick (far larger when one considered sticking it up his ass than it was normally) and the other shaking a little bottle of lube with a frown of concentration. “Untie my arms,” Federico said.

“In a minute,” Edward said. “Have you done this before?” There was zero chance that he was going to answer that (no) and Edward seemed to view it as a rhetorical question anyway. Because his slick-slippery-fingers were back at his asshole, his heavy breath was getting all wet and dick-brained even before he pushed his fingers in. The lube made it _easier_ but not perfect. “I would have thought you would have,” Edward mumbled. He moved his fingers away but rubbed the fat head of his dick against him instead. Again-and-again until he was nudging forward, strangely hesitant in his insistence just before he finally managed to push the tip of his dick in. 

“Fuck,” Federico mumbled. 

Edward pressed both hands against his lower back and rocked back-and-forth again, pushed deeper and deeper by degrees until he was fully inside. And then his fumbling-fingers pulled at the belt until it was loose enough he could get his fingers free. “Were you a virgin, Federico?” Edward asked. He laid across his back, mouthed the words across his neck as he humped him with lazy rolls. “Should I feel special?”

The sum of stimuli was too overwhelming to concentrate on any one thing. His attention was skipping from the dick in his ass, to the sweat caught in the rubbed-raw skin of his back, to Edward’s hands gripping at the sides of his lower back, to the mouth that was leaving sloppy kisses against the side of his neck. He was trying to think about the ruffle of blankets that his dick was pressed into but then his hands were pulling at sheets and his knees were banging against the footboard. Edward’s words were a droll drag of English that was hard to understand (given the circumstances). 

“Tell me,” Edward said against the nape of his neck. One of his hands lifted to ruffle up through Federico’s hair from the base of his head up toward his face. “I know you’ve been wanting this, you find someone to do it before me?”

Federico twisted around to loop his arm around Edward’s neck and kissed him. Oh-and-Edward liked that; kissed him in time with the slow thrust of his hips. When Edward growled at him, he expected to be shoved back into the bed and was confused by the way Edward pulled back and urged him onto his back. Federico was bent in half by Edward’s body between his thighs, hissing with discomfort at the rub of the fine sheets but clutching at Edward’s face to bring him down and kiss him again. 

That was good--like that, with hands all across the mostly unmarked front of his body. Federico jerked his own dick and Edward straightened his arm to lift his upper body away from Federico and nodded at him. “You really are very tight,” he mumbled like he had meant to say it before. 

“Thank god you’re good to look at,” Federico said back but it was without venom, breathless, devoid of almost any sort of emotion except the need to get off. 

\--

Back in the lost summers, in the last few days before Federico sold Edward out just to get rid of him, they were laughing with bloody teeth and fresh bruises. Edward was a full-grown-man (god _damn_ ) or as close to one as Federico thought he was likely to get. The grass under their backs was soft-and-hot, warmed by the sun and their stupid drunken brawling. Federico was filling up with (blackness-and-hate), made of nothing but bad ideas and the loose-loose-feeling of _careless freedom_. 

His legs were sprawled open at his bent knees, his arms were over his back, he was saying, “I need to get laid.” Because it was true, because he’d been playing an escalating game with Edward. There had to be a line they wouldn’t cross (there _had_ to be) but Edward turned to look at him, all smug-and-pink. 

The way his cousin rolled over top of him, the effortlessness of his body stretching out across Federico’s was the stuff of his pornographic daydreams. The cool blood-and-liquor taste of Edward’s mouth so close to his was _exactly right_ , the only way he thought they’d ever manage this. He thought about cutting Edward some slack, he thought about making it easy for him, thought about lifting his head and pressing their mouths together like saying _please, yes, thank you_ but he tilted his head instead, tipped his chin up. “Want something?” he whispered because he needed anything that looked-like, felt-like, seemed-like an excuse. 

“Ezio!” was the interrupting noise of the fat-baby, running through the low grass with his hands cupped around his mouth. He stopped close enough to catch them sprawled out all over one another and his eyes narrowed (not widened) as his arms dropped to his sides. And he said, “have you seen Ezio?”

Federico punched Edward because there was nothing like reason or logic in his skull. Edward fell to the side (oh-so-easily) and Federico rolled up to his feet, staggering from the rush of blood moving around in his beaten head. “How the hell would I know where he is? I thought you were playing _fairies_ with Claudia, anyway.” He spoke in Italian because he’d taught it to the little brat when he was a toddler and there wasn’t anyone here but the baby that would speak it. (Well, except Ezio when he was angry.)

Oh-and Altair’s fat little face was the perfect mask of Phyllis’ dead-eyed-stare, his shoulders were squared as his skin turned pink but his smile was _cruel white teeth_ when he said, “looked like _you_ were playing _fairies_ , Federico.”

There were rules (important rules) but _no_ rule more absolute than the one that protected the fat baby and he _knew_ it. Federico smiled back (with his heart in his throat, pounding painfully) with his body leaning back and his arms over his chest. 

“What would you know?” Edward demanded. He sat up with fresh blood on his face, laughed at Altair’s scowl. “Get lost, you little faggot.”

It was easy to sell out Edward in the end. Altair carried the insults straight to Phyllis. All Federico had to do was allude to worse-things that lurked in the garden, just waiting to endanger her precious-precious fat-baby-grandson.

\--

In the doghouse shower, Federico leaned his head against the wall with his eyes closed and the hot-hot water scalding his already raw wounds. He breathed through the steam, concentrating on nothing-at-all with such desperate precision someone might have mistaken him for a man who had any idea at all what he was doing.

\--

There was a polite spread of easily-eaten food taking up most of the long countertop in the kitchen. It was finger-food, crackers and dip, vegetables and sandwiches. A guilt-ridden display of hospitality. Federico ate because he was _starving_. (Nothing worked up an appetite like antagonizing your cousin into fucking you, really.) He was chewing his way through a handful of crackers when Edward appeared fully dressed and shower-fresh. 

“Fuck,” Edward said as soon as he looked at him. His hand was pushing his hair away from his face, holding it at the top of his head while he just stared at Federico. At the bruise on his face and chest, the scratches-bite-marks-rug-burn that covered the backs of his shoulders. There were abrasions across his wrists where the edges of his belt had dug into the skin. 

“Yeah, well. You could have broken my nose again so this isn’t so bad actually.” It wasn’t bad at all until he had to go back to the house with his mother’s all-seeing eyes and Phyllis’ cold-dark words. “We need to sneak out,” he said. “Go to a bar. Do you have a shirt I can wear?”

Edward nodded. “Why a bar?”

Federico smiled. “To start a fight, Edward.”

\--

It was his Mother that came to pick up Federico from the drunk tank. She scooped him up with a delicate swish of her signature and the elegant wrappings of a lady. It was four-thirty in the morning, a time that no one should be out of the house, and his Mother looked like perfection with her soft-toned-voice reassuring the police officers that she had raised him from an infant, she could handle him no matter how intoxicated he happened to be. Her hand was on the back of his arm, guiding him out of the police station, out to the car that was waiting. A dreary-looking driver was yawning in the front seat, most likely summoned from a sound sleep and forced to play along with the charade.

Mother turned her face away from him; kept her body still, legs crossed even in the car, hands resting on her knee. It seemed, at first, as if she were content to let him boil in the silence but her voice was sudden and curt when she said, “your ruse is very convincing, Federico.”

There was enough liquor swimming in his body that he was drifting in and out of _caring_. The grip he had on the world-as-it-was seemed tenuous and soft. His body was slouching and his hands were lazy against the insides of his legs. (He seemed to have developed quite a thing, hadn’t he? Quite the thing for spreading his legs lately.) Federico’s head was back against the headrest, the sticky spray of blood was all down his throat. And his voice was rough-rough-rough from exhaustion and smoking and _screaming_ all his useless confusion into the face of the men that he’d used to hide his sins. “Obviously not convincing enough,” was the best response he had. “I instigated it.”

“God damn it, Federico,” Mother hissed at him. The words were _hurt_ , wet all around the vowels and she looked at him then. There were miserable pinkness to her face, red spots everywhere with her breath shuddering in her shoulders. 

If he were sober he wouldn’t have laughed (or maybe he would have). He wouldn’t have rolled his head and looked at her with such carelessness. He wouldn’t have felt perfectly vile and delicious filthy with a grin on his face when he said, “don’t tell him until I’m sober. I want a fighting chance when he comes to kill me.” His eyes were barely open but he saw the flinch that went across his Mother’s face, the nervous flitter that turned her head away from him and the anger that settled in her fist against her lap. 

It was miles-and-miles of time before Mother turned back to look at him. Her expression was hard as steel, an absolute mask to bury her doubts behind. Her head tipped and her voice dropped, she said, “train your dog not to bite, Federico. Even your brother could reason out the true source of your injuries if you continue on as you have. The last thing we need is a blood feud over sex injuries.”

Well that was better than he expected, “what about you?” was as brave as he’d ever been, “what do you think?”

Mother looked right at him, at his bloody face, his beaten body, at the marks on his wrists that he hadn’t figured out how to explain away. Her tongue ran across her lips, that sad-sad-regret was stuck in her eyebrows again, “I think you deserve better than you allow yourself to have.” Her fingers were soft across the raw skin at the base of his hand and then her hands were off him again, gone save for that ghost of a touch. 

\--

The morning brought a hangover and a sudden revival of his injuries. The knocking at his door was like pounding hammers putting nails in his skull. He stumbled out of bed, wearing Edward’s fucking shirt still and pulled open the door to find Claudia on the other side with a glass of water and a little paper cup with pills in it. “Mother says you have to take your turn. So it’s time to get up.” Then she handed him the pills and the glass and rolled her eyes as she left.

Federico showered with his head still throbbing in objection. He found a tube of ointment in his bathroom that hadn’t been there the day before. It didn’t feel _good_ spread across the wounds but it promised pain relief on the label. He put an undershirt on to catch the oily smear of the ointment and a shirt with sleeves that went straight down to his wrist. He even buttoned them in place and stood in front of the mirror trying to work out if he even believed he’d started a bar fight the night before. 

\--

Phyllis barely spared him a full glance before her withered old lips turned up in a smile. Her voice was shallow and thin when she said, “well you’re obedient. Maria always was so very concerned with making you boys mind her. There was never enough love in her.” Phyllis sighed out through her narrow nose. Her hands ran across the quilt. 

“That’s funny coming from you,” Federico said. “You can’t love anyone.”

For a moment, Phyllis’ face was devoid of anything human, a brittle-white-mask caught between whatever emotions she thought were the best answers to the statement. Her head nodded, just a little. She said, “oh, I do love one,” she corrected.

“Do you love him? Are you capable of that?”

“I do not know what you imagine love to be. It’s a hateful passion; possessive, gnawing thing that eats away at the inside of a person. Love is what tore me. Love is what _made_ me. But the boy-- _my_ boy; he is the only thing in this life that has made me feel real joy. I did not think I was capable of it.” A cough shook her body but it did not persist. Rather, it settled and she sighed with it. Her eyes were dreary, sliding closed, and she fought it back. “No need to punish yourself on account of the lies you were raised with. There’s no shame in wanting what you want.”

“There must be a little shame in wanting from where I want it.” Just enough to make the stupidity of risking his life more enticing than self-preservation. Enough to let every ache in the whole of his body subside to the filthy-warm-memories. When he looked at her, Phyllis was _unimpressed_ by his logic. 

“Shame is ugly doubt, instituted by men with small dicks and smaller brains to draw a line between what is human and what is animal. The only shame in fucking Edward is the lies you tell him.”

Federico only sighed. “Do you want me to let Altair in the room?” 

Phyllis nodded. “Let me have my boy.” 

Altair was sitting on the stairs not so far outside the door, picking his fingernails and biting his lip. He looked up when the door opened, all wide-eyed-with wonder and was on his feet the second he saw Federico. The boy didn’t wait for an invitation but run straightaway to his Grandmother’s bed. She held his hand as she fell asleep and Federico watched the fat-baby lying oh-so-still at her side.

\--

It was Father, with infinite patience and the subtle wisdom of advanced age, that said, “it seems that you would have learned your lesson the first time. You should not expect that anyone will retrieve you if you decide to get yourself arrested again.” Because Father remembered (the way Federico did) the last time they had held a vigil over a dying family member. 

Phyllis was a poor stand in for Petruccio but appearances-were-appearances.

“Of course,” was all that Federico said. Just enough to indicate that he’d heard anything at all.

\--

Down in the kitchen, on his way out of the fucking house, Desmond was at the table with Mrs. Finch looking like he’d been punched in the gut. His miserable face was miserably pink but shock-white at Federico’s sudden intrusion. Alone, Mrs. Finch was a sweet-tempered old lady with a thin body and a round face. She was as soft and loving as warm fleece blankets. With her teeth gnashing for blood, she was a ferocious animal hell-bent on protecting her wounded young.

“Go on,” she said the way Phyllis might have. “Move on, it isn’t time for _you_ to eat.”

Desmond looked-down, not up or over of anywhere. He stared at the crumbs on the plate in front of him. 

Mrs. Finch sent him away with a scowl. “Go on,” she said again, like, “get _out_.”

\--

The dog house door was open, the whole of the house was settling in silence. Federico found a bottle of leftover liquor in the kitchen, on the counter by all the uneaten finger food He carried it with him, unscrewed the lid as he went so it was washing down his bitter doubts and his useless-shame as he climbed the stairs. There was no sound to point him in the right direction but he found Edward on the bed in the only bedroom he’d ever slept in, leaning back against the bed frame with all his new bruises still pink on the edges. His stare was out-of-focus, all soft and blunt around the edges. His thumb was pressed into the center of his lower lip while his cigarette was burning away-to-nothing. 

“Christ,” Edward said when his eyes focused in on him. “It wasn’t you I expected to find me.”

Federico shrugged. He invited himself to sit on the edge of the bed (not so far, he thought, from where he’d been flat on his back getting fucked yesterday). He took another drink from the bottle and then rested it on his knee. The liquor burned down his throat and made his stomach roll: angry at the offering. “You got another of those,” he motioned at the cigarette burning away to nothing between Edward’s blunt fingers. Rather than dig up another, Edward leaned forward to give up his own. He motioned for the bottle in return. 

Edward was sitting up against his side, close enough the heat of his body was a cloud aggravating the raw skin of his shoulders. His breath was low but heavy in between long swallows from the bottle. After a moment, he tipped his head down so his forehead was against Federico’s shoulder. 

It was an odd feeling, a sense of malcontent that was so tightly coiled around his guts that Federico thought he’d never-ever be free of it. The unsatisfied, restless want for _comfort_ was what brought him back, like a bit of iron filling with no ability to spare itself, drawn inexorably toward a magnet. He closed his eyes with his fingers wrapped slickly around the neck of the liquor bottle and thought, _he could have recognized Edward by the smell of him_. He could have recognized him by the cadence of his breath. They had been outcasts together in those fucking gardens, play-acting at being tough-shit-big-boys when they were nothing but scared shitless puppies mewling for attention. 

“Phyllis knows,” Federico whispered because it was _half_ the necessary truth. It was a kinder, sweeter, more forgiving version of what he should have said. _My Mother knows_ would have been like detonating a fire bomb in the room. Still, he didn’t open his eyes but feel Edward’s whole-body-sigh. “She had a bet with Calvin which one of us would make the first move.”

Edward snorted a laugh, tipped his head so his cheek was against the back of Federico’s shoulder and said, “who won?”

_Not us_ was the only answer that made sense but he didn’t push it over his numb lips. Federico took another drink of the liquor and dropped it to his lap to lift the cigarette (burned all but completely to ash) and turned his head. The smell of Edward’s hair was bar-room-floor and old-sweat. There was nothing arousing about the smell. There was nothing arousing about the ashy-smoke in his mouth. There was nothing _good_ about any of it. 

Federico was _bruised_ in a way that shook up his brain and that must have been why he stubbed the cigarette into the bedside table’s ashtray and caught the back of Edward’s loose-curled-fist to pull it down between his thighs. He leaned back far enough to nudge Edward’s face off his shoulder. There was the briefest look of objection on his cousin’s face. The low sigh of, “ _you must really hate me_ ,” like defeat.

Federico kissed him thinking, _he must have_ but Edward still climbed between his legs on the bed. He still pushed him into the mattress with his body and his long-fingered-hands sliding under Federico’s clothes. 

\--

It was after midnight again; loud in the quiet study of Grandpa’s doghouse. Edward was shirtless—glorious in his careless nudity, covered in the bruises of yesterday, with his head tipped back against the chair and a cigarette burning gray smoke into the air. His eyes were closed and his mouth open just enough to whistle breath through. Federico was across the way, slouching into his seat, wearing another borrowed shirt to keep the rug burn from sticking to the old-old leather.

He was drinking scotch; aged to perfection, from the dusty glasses he found in the bar. 

The music was so loud it was close to shaking the walls, and Federico was caught in a daze, halfway between the illusion of careless, senseless, reckless _freedom_ and the ache of reality settling into his bones.

\--

Morning came and Federico was wearing his own shirt (again) summoned from a bed that he’d barely had the time to warm with his presence. There was heavy-black-shadows under his eyes like the blue-spotted bruises on his ribs cleverly hidden by his shirt.

“Why are we eating out here?” Claudia hissed at him from her place at his right elbow. She was wearing a sweet white dress with bubbles for sleeves. Her arms were crossed over her chest and her mouth was a downward slash on her face. Even Ezio, usually emboldened with ignorance, was picking at the table just beneath his plate setting, looking anxiously between his fingers and the house beyond the patio. 

The answer came with the cheerful bustle of Mother’s feet, and the touch of her soft fingers across every person she passed. She squeezed William’s shoulder and stroked Claudia’s hair and rested her hand on his neck as she looked at him with overt fondness, saying: “it is nice that you were able to join us today.”

Following after her with the plod of orthopedic shoes was Mrs. Finch bearing a (silver) platter of still-steaming food. The weight of it bent her backward, the counter move to keep from spilling it all across the patio stones. Mother sat with her chin held up and her smile stapled to her bitter face. 

At his right elbow, as light and airy as a bird, Claudia made a sound like she’d been punched. Her eyes went wide and wet and she looked over at him with her eyebrows in wrinkles. “Where’s her cart?” Claudia asked.

Mrs. Finch set the platter in the space between the plates, leaning between Father and William who were sharing a corner. There was sweat on her face, caught in the little wisps of her hair and her chin. She dusted her hands on her dainty apron and turned to go and fetch more. 

Ezio looked up at him, chin low and eyes up, like _begging_ him to do _anything_ about it before it got worse. But Mother was clearing her throat, “the cart is for service indoors, Claudia. It wouldn’t do to ruin the wheels.” Then Mother dusted her hands against her lap, “Mrs. Finch does not mind. It is her place and she knows it.”

Mother was organized like that, a woman built on structure, tucking each person and each thing into its neat little cubby. Mother was above and Mrs. Finch was below and recent events must be addressed (and recent actions punished) or else Mrs. Finch might forget she was nothing-but-a-servant. Altair turned his head toward the sound of her face, his fat little baby face curling up with a curious kind of disbelief at those words. Whatever he might have said was interrupted by the steady sound of Mrs. Finch bringing another heaping platter to the table.

“Mrs. Finch,” he said very loudly over the calm chatter at the table. Desmond had gone so pale it seemed he would pass out from lack of oxygen but he looked at the fat baby (face all red with anger and effort) as he stood there with his hands in fists like Altair was some man’s savior.

Mrs. Finch was dusting her hands on her apron (again), halfway from dropping off a heaping platter of pancakes and going back along the long path that took her to the kitchen. “Yes?” she said.

“Altair, sit down,” Mother said.

Ezio was on Altair’s side of the table, gawky and odd looking but _smart enough_ (at least this once) to realize the least safe place for him was in the position between Altair and their mother. Fate or maliciousness had put Desmond and William on opposite sides of the table from one another with Father between them. Federico was next to Mother, turned to have a perfect view of the scathing, _furious_ glance that Altair spared her.

When the fat baby spoke it was addressed to Mrs. Finch, “don’t bring them any more food. If they want it they can get out of the kitchen.” He was _shaking_ with fury when he said it, like the words were being cut out of his throat.

Mrs. Finch smiled at him. “Al—” but whatever gentle reminder she wanted to issue him that it was her job to serve him was cut short by Mother.

Oh, Mother was a fine red fury, slapping her hand on the table. “Sit down Altair,” she said as she rose to her feet. And when Mother moved, the whole table shifted with agitation. Federico slouched just enough to get his foot against the table leg and pushed it ever-so-minutely closer to Ezio. The boy was screwing up his eyebrows trying to figure out what he meant by it. Federico didn’t waste time trying to send the information telepathically but pulled Claudia backward from the table far enough she was safe from breaking a leg if it fell over. “It is _not_ your place to give orders to the staff,” Mother shouted at Altair. 

Altair was round, a comical ball of fat with large lips and a strange nose but his eyes, (sunken as they were into his skull by the wealth of his cheeks) were as vicious and violent as his Grandmother’s. He curled his hands around the edge of the table (and Ezio all but nodded at that moment) and pulled it up far enough to tip it over balanced. The food on the platters slid perilously toward Federico’s side and William shouted an objection as he jumped backward.

Mrs. Finch was calling an objection but Ezio’s hands were well-hidden under the table pushing it steadily upward so it reached a point where weight shifted and not even Father’s attempt to right it could have saved it. 

Federico shoved his seat back and pulled Claudia with him by the back of her dress. The table hit the patio with such velocity that it cracked the stones of it. The food sloshed and spilt and spread across the ground at their feet and Altair-the-future-King was standing there with his hands at his side, staring back at their Mother unflinching-and-furious. 

“This house is _mine_ ,” Altair said. “This food is _mine_. If you want to eat, you can get it yourself.” Then he yanked at Desmond’s arm and pulled him away from the tipped over table. “Mrs. Finch,” he shouted over the stunned-silence, “don’t serve them anything anymore. I’ll speak to Grandmother.” Then he took her hand when he passed her and pulled her and Desmond along after him toward the door.

\--

Father was in a rage that Mother’s sweet hands couldn’t cool. Federico figured it was fifty-fifty that she would let slip how she suspected Edward-and-him to keep the fragile peace she had spent these long, long days cultivating with Phyllis. It had been years (or so) since Federico could remember being honestly afraid but nonetheless, he skipped the liquor and went to hide in the roses to smoke and wait for the execution. 

Edward found him, on his way to (or from) the doghouse. He paused there with his hands rubbing at his pants and indecision making him hover. 

Federico leaned back into the bench and raised his eyebrows like an invitation. He motioned to the side with the hand holding his cigarette, “what?”

“What’s your Mother going to do to the baby?” Edward asked. If one squinted, and if they stared, they might have thought Edward actually cared about whatever his Mother was going to do to Altair. The man stood there, indecisive in a way that was _offensive_ , with his pink tongue across his lips and his face caught between rage and worry. 

“Nothing,” Federico said.

“Cut the bullshit, I was there when he came in the room yelling about her. Phyllis isn’t going to live long enough to protect him. Not even you’re—”

But Federico rolled his eyes before anything could be added to the sentence. 

“—fuck you,” Edward said. It wasn’t even what he meant to say but the venom in the words was echoed in the finality of the way he shook his head. He turned and walked away. The lack of a fight was _exhausting_ but Federico was low on sleep and high on fresh aches so he went right back to smoking his last cigarette and waiting for the shit storm to blow in.

\--

Phyllis died in the morning of a Wednesday. She died in her bed, with Altair’s fingers curled around her slow-cooling hand. His screaming was _heartbreak_ , Desmond’s pink-eyed-cries were _fear_.

\--

Federico wore black when they put Phyllis in the ground. He stood with solemn silence in the line of mourners that ducked their heads and said their prayers. The spectacle went on for hours, a slow march of endless faces caught in smug-relief from mortal terror as they choked out their best attempt at _real condolences_. Mother stood as the benefactor of their hollow prayers until Altair stepped up to her side. His nose was red-red-red and his eyes were swollen pink from crying. But his hands were fists at his side. 

It was easy to see, even from his poor vantage point, how every man still waiting to spout their bullshit thoughts-and-prayers to the heir apparent straightened their back and tightened their faces. Mother was fearsome with a sweet-face, a kind and indulgent acceptance of every word offered her. The social contract protected both parties, the transaction of hollow well wishes for future tolerance assured mutual success—and then there was Altair with his Grandmother’s dead stare, looking at each of them like they were beneath him.

They slobbered their apologies for his loss at his feet and he motioned them away with no promises. Federico watched it for a minute, as long as he could stand it, and when his stomach was turning in knots, he went looking for the alcohol.

He found Edward outside, drinking a beer at a wine event, looking up at the dark, starless sky. Federico stood near but not next to him, glanced up and then out into the lawn and the parking lot beyond the hall that had been rented to host the ridiculous event.

“Ding dong the witch is dead,” Edward said. He held his beer bottle out to knock against Federico’s wine glass. 

But things like Phyllis never died, they mutated to new shapes, “the king is dead,” Federico corrected, “long live the king.” Then he tapped his glass against the rim of the beer bottle. 

Edward sighed. “Whatever,” he said. “I’m gone again tomorrow. All of you deserve your misery.” He finished off his bottle and threw it into the classy trash can at the corner before he tugged his borrowed suit jacket straight and went back inside. 

\--

Stupidity brought him to the dog house after midnight, before dawn. Recklessness delivered him to Edward’s bed and selfishness dug his fingernails like bloody claws into his cousin’s back.

Edward was laying on his belly, smoking a cigarette with his arms and his head hanging off the bed; Federico was sitting with his back against the headboard and one of his legs across his cousin’s legs, thinking how unpleasantly sticky he was in many different places. He was halfway around to thinking up something to say about it when Edward let out a sigh like he’d been waiting to do it for days, “I keep thinking, there’s got to be some part of you that’s decent. I keep repeating it in my head that you aren’t going to fuck me over on this and I can repeat it until the end of time, you’re going to use this against me as soon as it’s good for you.”

“Not this,” he said. “I don’t _benefit_ from this. No matter how I tell it, I still let you fuck me.”

Edward rolled onto his side; all narrow eyes and cigarette smoke. “It doesn’t matter to you, if you benefit. It only matters that you don’t go down alone.”

There was no fighting that truth. Federico shrugged. “I won’t tell.” There was no defending it because Edward had always been at the receiving end of Federico’s selfish attempts to better his own circumstances.

“Careful,” Edward said, “that almost sounded like a promise.” He didn’t smile but it was a near thing. “Please don’t tell—no matter what you say, you’ll survive. You always do; I won’t.”

“I won’t tell,” Federico said again, exactly the same as the first time.

\--

It was three-four years until he happened across Edward on a tropical beach. The man was golden with sunshine, grinning after the retreating sound of someone’s voice. He stopped short when he ran into Federico (staying the fuck away from his family) with the look of dread that was so comical and so overwrought that he couldn’t keep from laughing. 

“Good to see you too,” Federico said. 

Edward looked backward, over his shoulder, toward whoever or whatever he had been grinning about and then back at him. “No it’s not. I didn’t.” Edward was frustrated with himself so quit trying to make up words and cleared his throat instead. Federico was carrying his drink back from the bar and Edward was walking up from the beach, covered in sand from his calves to his elbows like he’d been _rolling_ in it. “How are you?”

“Perfect,” Federico said. “You?”

“Better,” was Edward’s answer. “Maybe I’ll run into you later? Where are you staying?”

Federico thought about not telling him. He thought about it in the half-seconds between thoughts, in the short spans of time that he had to think of anything. Except that Edward was filled out in the years since they’d run into one another. The shoddy job he’d done of covering his body in lazy gray tattoos had be fixed. The darker lines were sharp against his tan and he smelled like _sunshine_ and _hot sand_. The smile on his face was friendly but also _familiar_ in the way Federico’s body had the muscle memory of Edward’s. 

So he told Edward where to find him and how long he’d be there.

\--

It was a day and a half before Edward showed up at his hotel. He was ripe with pretenses, embarrassed to be found trapped inside the four walls of Federico’s single room. His rough hands were rubbing at his neck and his mouth was twisted out of shape by his indecision. Federico didn’t ask him what was wrong but Edward answered him anyway, “I half hoped you already left.”

“No such luck, but if you want to act like you just missed me, it wouldn’t offend me.”

“Nothing offends you,” Edward said. He grabbed Federico by the shirt and dragged him forward. His mouth was rough-and-hard, slanted across Federico’s as his arms pulled him close and crushed him in place. 

His hands were in Edward’s hair (always in his hair, always pulling at the brittle-dry-blond-tangles) and his tongue was in Edward’s mouth licking at the conflicted desire that was stuck there. Edward’s hands were going down his back, and pawing at his ass (always that) like he couldn’t think of anything-at-all except getting his hands on it. Federico said, “I should be offended you think I’m that easy,” between this kiss and the next one. 

Edward pulled his shirt off and dropped it to the side, smirked at Federico’s bare skin as he ran his hands down the dense hair that covered his chest and belly and then up again to slid around his neck. “You should be offended to _be_ this easy.” Then he kissed him again, like arrogance could be rewarded. 

Federico shoved Edward into the wall, heard the framed-art rattle and bit at his mouth with the pretense of being offended that he just couldn’t force himself to muster up. He pulled one of Edward’s legs up, put it around his hip and ground against his body while he tongue-fucked his mouth. 

Edward was easy-and-loose, letting him rut against his body without an objection. His hands were lazy with exploration, plucking at his skin and smoothing down his back. Every thrust of Federico’s hips against his earned him a light puff of breath lick-lapped with a moan of effort. “Finished?” Edward asked with his tongue curling around the word and his eyes half-lidded. He grabbed Federico by the ass and pulled him up off his feet, carried him the six-seven steps to the bed to dump him there. 

It was Federico pushing his pants down and Edward climbing up between his thighs. There were supplies on the table by the bed (because they weren’t stupid boys). Edward fucked him with the headboard knocking against the wall and Federico’s legs over his arms, sucking marks into his neck like scrawling his name across his handiwork.

After, when Federico’s body was jelly and Edward was lying on his belly next to him, he thought about Phyllis and wished he hadn’t. “Why did Calvin think you wanted to fuck me?”

Edward laughed at him (low and throaty), “why do you think?” Then he lifted himself up on his elbows and scooted close enough to inspect Federico’s face. “I know why _I_ want to fuck you, why the hell would you let me?”

“I make bad choices,” Federico whispered. “Ask anyone.” Then he heaved a sigh and stretched out the awkward strain in the inside of his thigh. “I told Phyllis what you did because you were the only one I could hurt and get away with it.” He looked at Edward and didn’t like the twist of anger that crossed his face. “Nobody cared about what happened to you.”

“You’re a fucking dick,” Edward said. He sat up on his knees like he was going to leave. 

“I let you fuck me because Phyllis said I have to settle my debts.” That wasn’t the reason but it made Edward’s spine stiffen and the muscles in his shoulders bunch. There was anger-like-fire growing inside of him when he turned back to look at Federico. His mouth was tense and his eyes were narrow. Edward was staring at him like trying to unravel the truth from the lie. “I mean, that’s why I did it the first time. Seemed fair at the time. Since they thought you’d done it anyway.”

“How fucking selfless of you.” Then he turned on his knees and grabbed Federico by the inside of his leg to drag him down off the pillows. He crouched over his body and pressed both his hands around Federico’s elbows with the full weight of his body, kept him trapped in place as he leaned over him. HIs hair was loose and scraggly around his face. “How do you keep that score? One fuck for every time you sold me out? One fuck for every time I had to sit across from your Mother and listen to her tell me how I was ruining you? I need to know how you’re calculating your debt, Federico. So I can figure out how many times I’ve got left.”

“You act like I didn’t do you a favor.”

Edward was angry and it was _confusing_ (most of all) but it was almost an enticing shudder because Federico was being kissed hard-and-fast all over again. He kissed back with the same stunted violence, pulled his arms free and wrestled until he was pinned belly-down and _fucked_ all over again. Edward was teeth-digging-into the back of his shoulder when he came and Federico was humping the mattress and the ruffled up blankets under them until he came with a groan and went still again. Edward pressed his forehead against his back while his breathing cooled down again. 

He was safe, out of sight, when he said, “you’re my _cousin_. What the fuck are we even doing? You’re _my_ cousin.”

“It’s not like I’m the important one. You fucked Ezio, now that would matter.” Federico rolled over again, watched Edward climbing off the bed. “Everyone knows I was asking for it.”

“Some things aren’t about you,” Edward said. He picked his clothes up off the floor and yanked them back on. But he was sitting on the side of the bed with an odd mix of guilt-and-satisfaction. “Did I hurt you? I mean--I was, I wasn’t thinking.”

“I’m fine,” Federico said. 

“Good,” Edward said. Then he sat there another moment, like he meant to say something and _didn’t_. Instead he picked himself up and took a step toward the door. “Well--I have to go.”

Federico waved him away.

\--

The next time he saw Edward was in the chaos before his wedding, across a table filled with family members summoned to witness him make a fucking mockery out of a holy union. And that night (since it was one of the last ones he had to confess anything of the sort) he said, “Cristina.” He thought it was worthy to mention and maybe it was breaking the only promise he’d ever made to Edward. But she sat at his side and he told her, “I had sex with Edward.”

But she was quick with an eyebrow to question his sincerity, her pretty face caught up in disbelief, “we’ve established your previous partners will not be grounds for calling off the wedding. If you can live with how I fucked your brother, I can live with whoever you fucked before me.” She was smiling because they had made a game of excuses, trying to outdo one with reasons they could not be wed. It lingered, her clever smile—wavering in uncertain gleefulness until it slid (slowly, slowly) away and in its place she was only sighing. “Edward?” she repeated.

“Yes.”

Then she was silent, with her mouth drawn down to a small shape and her eyes looking to the side, damp and pinked by confusion. Her fingers toyed with the folds of the dainty skirt she’d worn to dinner that night. Her hair was loose and heavy on her shoulders. “Why?” she said when she’d worked it through, “why _him_?”

Federico coughed a laugh. “Would you feel better if it was one of the other cousins?”

She narrowed her eyes at him, “I could understand why, at least. They’re not—they’ve got a certain level of attractiveness. But Edward?” She turned her body so her elbow was leaning against the back of the couch and waited for his answer. “Don’t sit there and look at me like I’m being invasive; the night before our wedding you said you had incestuous gay sex with your older cousin who I have barely heard about and only seen once. Your cousin that you have _never_ spoken about the entire time I have known you including the time I was dating Ezio. I know about your gay uncle and the kid that picked on Ezio in first grade. I know about your father’s favorite Italian tailor and his _entire family_ and I don’t know about Edward. So there must be a reason.”

_Because I could_ seemed as terrible as _because my dead grandfather thought we would_ seemed as unbelievable as _well I owed him for fucking him over_ and not a single one of those reasons were as true as, “it was convenient. He was available and willing to participate in poor choices.”

“I thought you said that your father attacked his brother when he found him making out with the waiter in the house or something like that.” There wasn’t a question in the statement but Federico nodded and Cristina’s eyes narrowed again and then she cleared her throat, “were you setting Edward up?”

It was the sum of his life that he could not even treat the suggestion as ridiculous. He just sighed, “no. If my father found out I was getting fucked by Edward, he would have killed me too. It never benefited me in any way. I— I was angry; I don’t have a reason. It just happened and then it was convenient and easy.”

Then she nodded and drew in a breath through her nose. She picked at the skirt again with her dainty fingertips, “so is it better? With a real cock?” And when Cristina looked at him again it was with perfect innocence.

“That’s what you want to know? Not if I’ll do it again, not if I loved him, not if I’m secretly gay? You want to know if you’re a better lay?” He thought he would kiss her if she weren’t smiling too wide to manage it. His arm slid around her back to pull her up against his side and she came willingly, turned herself around to sit on his lap with her arm around her neck and her cheeks spotted pink from laughing. 

“I know you won’t do it again unless I say you can; I know you loved him or you wouldn’t have kept his secret.” Her fingers pushed his hair behind his ears and her smile slipped into something sad and settled, “not even to save yourself.” She was sighing when she said, “and I know you’re not gay. So yes, I want to know if I’m the better lay.”

He couldn’t answer the question so he kissed her and she let him.

\--

But the next time, Federico was drinking off his guilt about Desmond on an exile yacht, still black-and-blue with regret that he couldn’t shake. Cristina was beautiful with pink in her cheeks from the wine she’d been drinking. Their son was sleeping in the downstairs cabin, snuggly tucked into place and watched over by Edward’s daughter who liked Vincenzio in a way that seemed to annoy Haytham more than anything. 

It was after-dark in the middle of the ocean and there was nobody (nobody at all) around to see or hear anything except the three of them and the stupid stripper pole that Edward was trying to justify as just part of the overall structure of his yacht. That must have been why he took the time to show them a few things he’d learned how to do. 

Cristina was leaning against Federico’s side, smiling into the rim of her glass, saying (just loud enough to be heard), “so would you still do it?” like the question was a pulse of slick-wet-arousal. “I mean, if I said you could.”

Edward was sighing at him with one hand on the stripper pole and his whole body leaning out away from it. “Your fucking mouth,” he said to Federico.

“She’s my _wife_ ,” Federico said. Then he looked at her, looked at Edward, looked back, “I’d do it if he would.” Because honesty-was-important and there was no use in denying what was obvious anyway. The idea of it must have gotten her all wet between the thighs because she pushed her knees together and looked up at Edward.

He was working up to turning down the offer because it was _wrong_ with witnesses the way it wasn’t wrong without. Edward dropped his hand away from the pole and shook his head like he couldn’t fucking resist he uttered, “Goddamn _you_ ,” like a sigh as he said, “But never again.”

It was one of those promises that you _shouldn’t_ make because it couldn’t be _kept_. They were stupid-stupid boys that made a mistake when they were young-and-dumb and there was no getting away from it (no matter what). Cristina slid her hand down between Federico’s thighs to grip at his dick and turned her face to kiss him because he was half-hard just from the _idea_. “Can I watch?”

\--

They found a bedroom and a bed, stripped down to the skin with Edward’s hands on his waist and his tongue in Federico’s mouth. He hated the difference in their height, hated how it left him feeling small but he appreciated the strength in Edward’s body when he was shoved down into the bed. He liked the easy-pride the man, the way he _fit_ all around and all inside of Federico when he finally slicked his dick up and pushed it into him. 

Cristina was sitting with her back pressed to the wall and her hand down between her thighs. She was wearing her long-cover-up and nothing underneath because she was modest like anyone ought-to-be. Edward fucked him slow-and-deep, knocked their hips together hard enough the echoing slap was only half-drowned by the compulsive moans rattled free from his chest. Federico was pulling at Edward’s hair, biting at his loose mouth when they kissed. 

But Edward didn’t give, he didn’t push, he fucked Federico just the same. It was an eternity of the same motion, of being pulled and pushed and held in place until his body was coated in sweat and the need settled in his gut was _immense_. 

“Fuck me,” Federico snarled at him. He shoved at Edward’s shoulders and arched his body to get free of him, rolled onto his stomach waited for Edward to fuck back into him. It was his hand pulling at Edward’s hip and his body being shoved down into the mattress because he was getting _fucked_ good and proper. 

Cristina’s fingers were on his face and she was wiggling over, her legs were spread open as she tilted her hips and slid her fingers into his hair to pull him down. “Oh,” she was saying, “oh. Oh.”

\--

In the morning, it was the smell of the ocean and the silence on the upper deck. Federico was lazy on a lounge chair with his son sleeping against his chest, all slack-pink mouth hanging open and thick dark hair in erratic sweat peaks on his head. He’d brought a blanket to keep the chill of the wind off him while he luxuriated in the slow rise of the sun beyond the horizon. 

Edward found him first, carrying a mug of coffee like an old-old man, his hair pulled into a pony tail so sloppy it failed to keep any hair away from his face. He sat in the upright seat opposite him and eased his cup onto the table between them with the greatest of care. For a minute, they were quiet like that. Just the rising sun and the glorious scent of coffee to keep them company. 

“Uh,” Edward said when the silence became suffocating, “I—,” He rubbed the back of his neck with his gruff hand and let out a breath. They were a fine set of strangers in the morning.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” Federico said, “whatever it is—I can handle it.”

Edward leveled a glare at him that was far harsher than any words that he could have come up with. The same glare he’d given him as children, the one reserved for unseemly little boys and cruel little monsters that turned in their cousins for good favor or just for fun. “I’ve got a few questions I need real answers to, Federico. I’m not you. I don’t see through people, I don’t figure out what’s not being said. I _need_ to know.”

He nodded his head and bit back a sigh. 

Edward was nodding along, stalled out now that he’d gotten the all-clear to proceed. There was guilt like invasive vines, running all through his body until it choked him when he tried to speak. His whole face was downcast with old hurt and worry, his fingers blunt ends against the surface of the table. It seemed _cruel_ to let him linger in that state here, where he’d always been safe from the things that Federico had done to him. But Edward dragged his eyes up again before Federico could speak. He said, “there’s no sense in sugar coating it, did I rape you—the first time.” His memory must have been cloudy with details because he immediately followed it up with, “with the belt, when we were fighting.”

“No,” Federico said.

“I don’t believe you.” Edward nodded as he said it. “I’ve gone over it a thousand times in my head and I can’t figure out any way that I didn’t. I was better at it when I was drunk; I was good at it when you were standing right there because I was so angry at you. I was furious at you for so long. I know what I did, I know why I did it. I wanted to hurt you, I wanted to take anything from you I could.” There was nothing surprising in the words except the way Edward’s voice broke, the pinkness of his eyes when he forced every syllable across his raw throat.

Federico couldn’t sit up without waking up his son so he cleared his throat instead. “It didn’t happen like that, Edward. I wanted everything I got from you. It wasn’t about sex, it was always about something else—I mean, except last night. That was just sex.”

“I hurt you.”

“Yes,” Federico nodded. “You did. It took weeks for the bruises to heal. I’ve still got scars on my wrists from that stupid belt.” He held his hand up and turned it so he could look at the sliver thin white marks. “I still wanted it.”

“I should have been a better person,” Edward said. “I wasn’t and I should have been. You didn’t deserve the shit I did to you.”

Yes, well, “I did. I have no illusions about who I am. There is no apologizing for the things that I’ve done to people; the only justice I can give them is my blood. I don’t lay awake at night and worry about what we did.”

Edward was looking at him with narrow eyes and a sideways frown. “Shouldn’t you?”

“I lay awake and I think, if I ever slip up, if I ever accidentally say anything or do anything while my Father’s there that he’ll kill me. I think, _my mother knows_ and she saw all those bruises and the cuts and the scrapes and she didn’t care. She _knows_ and all I can think is eventually she’ll need me gone, and she’ll tell him. He will kill me.” Federico shrugged, as if it could be shrugged off so easily, “so no, I don’t worry about what we did when we were twenty and stupid. I wanted you for comfort and you never failed me.”

“Mama Maria knows?” Edward repeated. It seemed like the sort of thing that Federico must have told him at some point. But the surprise in his voice was genuine as he shook his head and rubbed his blunt fingers across the edge of his eyes. 

“Assume my Mother knows everything,” Federico said. He looked down at Vincenzio as he wiggled awake with a distasteful curl to his lip. The little boy pushed his hands against Federico’s chest and lifted himself up to squint into the light and then uncurled his fist and let out a confused cry. “I’d like to raise my children to be happy,” he said. “I’d like to think they have a better chance at it than I did.”

“Nobody would let your father kill you,” Edward said. “I wouldn’t, Altair wouldn’t. _Ezio_ wouldn’t.” That last, the one that carried any weight at all. 

Vincenzio looked over at Edward and his face pinched in a greater confusion as he let out another testing cry. He tipped sideways in an attempt to locate his mother, and finding her unavailable turned back to look at him and let out another cry. 

“I’d rather not put him in the position to choose,” Federico said. “Ezio lives in a bubble where he is loved by everyone and I don’t want to be the one that takes it from him.” He sat up and got up to his feet. Vincenzio clung to his shirt with both fists and made some attempt at real crying. He was finished with the conversation and the old wounds that it torn the scabs away from. But Edward was still looking at him. “If it will settle your conscience, if I ever feel like my Father is coming to kill me, I’ll call you. About everything else, you never had any reason to feel guilt at all.”

“That doesn’t help much,” Edward said.

“It’s all I’ve got.”

Edward nodded again. “Then it’ll have to do.” And just when he was sure the conversation was through. “But I’d rather not do this again. You’re my cousin, at some point we should go back to acting like that.”

Now that made him smile; the stupidity of the assumption that they could achieve that miracle. “Sure,” he said and they both sighed. 

“At least try not to,” Edward amended.

“Sure,” Federico said again. Then he took his son back down the steps to find his Mother and his breakfast.


End file.
